Our Life Like a Day

Our life like a day with family. When we born into this world, our family is there. In the morning, when we wake up, we wake up with our family. All of us leaving the house to study, work, play, ...

In the evening, we are back home to see each others: father, mother, children, husband, wife, brothers, and sisters. So, when we leave this world, our family is the one to say goodbye.

Begin and end, we are in a family.

My Development Computer 2017

Here are the essential tools I put in my seven years old personal laptop for my application development during evening and weekend as of July 2017. Most of them are open source and free. My other development machine at work is much better and powerful than this (Intel i7 CPU and 16GB RAM).

1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Google Chrome
3. Notepad++ is a free  source code text editor.
4. WinMerge for compare and merge files.
5. 7-Zip (Compress and decompress files)
6. KeePass the free, open source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager. I don't need to remember password for each web sites or applications.
7. Python 3.6  This programming language is powerful and fast. According to TIOBE Index for July 2017, Python is one of top five popular programming languages. 
8. LibreOffice is a powerful free, open source and cross platform office suite. I used it on other PC Windows, my MacBook Pro, and Ubuntu Linux.
9. SQL Server 2016 SP1 Developer Edition SQL Server Developer Edition is a free download for Visual Studio Dev Essentials members and for development and testing only, and not for production environments or for use with production data per Microsoft SQL Server blog
10. Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017 (Free version for an individual developer or small business, not for corporate)
11. Microsoft Visual Studio Code. This is free, open source, and runs everywhere. It loaded faster than Visual Studio.
12. Git for Windows. It's a free and open source distributed version control system.
13. Node.js® is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.
14. VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
15. Greenshot is the most awesome tool for making screenshots you can get on your Windows PC. It's is better than built-in application Snipping Tools. I can blackout or obscure portion of screen easily.
16. FileZilla® Open source FTP software.

In addition to C# and Microsoft SQL Server, I will spend my spare time to work on Python and Node.js.

Check for Conexant Audio Driver Keylogger

Even you don't have HP computer, to be safe, you should make a quick check to see your computer have Conexant log file: MicTray.log or any file name begin with MicTray

Further reading:

1. Arstechnica: HP laptops covertly log user keystrokes, researchers warn
2. SpiceWork: Keylogger in HP audio driver
3. InfoWord: HP computer owners: Check for the MicTray Conexant keylogger

Windows as a service

I did not know about that until I received an email from US-CERT few days ago regarding to Microsoft Ending Security Updates for Windows 10 version 1507. I thought Windows 10 released two years ago should have couple years before ending support like Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7... This surprise led me to do more research. Quick guide to Windows as a service had a clear explanation.

So I went to check my Windows 10 version. It was 1511.

To be safe, it should be upgrade to the latest version. But, I got this error: "There were some problems installing updates, but we'll try again later. If you keep seeing this and want to search the web or contact support for information, this may help: (0x800705b4)". It took me at least five hours to research for the solution.

Finally, my goal to upgrade achieved after I downloaded Microsoft Windows Update Assistant to help me update to the latest version of Windows 10. Another three hours to upgrade from Windows 10 version 1511 to Windows 10 version 1703 (build 15063). Well, my familiar terminal window "Command" was hidden and Window PowerShell is a default.

Cloud Services

Cloud services actually is a new “marketing” name for servers hosting with some new features. Nothing new. Instead you contracted AT&T, Verizon, or other … to host your servers, or lease their equipment depend on your budget, network infrastructure architect (100% servers on premise or 25% servers on premise or 50% servers on premise with the rest of server host somewhere else),  you use AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, …

A sinner's playlist

Here is my current playlist for Tuesday and Friday. These prayers keep me, a sinner, a poor, at peace.

“Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” (Luke, 5:31-32)

Mừng Xuân Đinh Dậu 2017. Happy New Year. Year Of Rooster 2017.

Trước thềm năm mới, cầu chúc mọi người một năm an bình, nhiều may mắn, sức khoẻ và tràn đầy ơn Trên.